joining us in washington, michael shearer, political reporter for "the new york times." lauren ashburn, editor-in-chief of dailydownload.com, where i'm also a contributor. and craig crawford who blogs about politics at craigcrawford.com and is the author of "the politics of life." michael shearer, i know there are good reporters at cnn and elsewhere, but is sounds like a lot of so-called clowns have hijacked much of the media coverage. why is that? >> i think for many of the reasons that they've been doing it for the past couple of years is that it -- you know, it gives them a platform that they wouldn't otherwise have if they didn't say outrageous things. >> the reason we're giving them platform is? >> well, i mean, i -- you know, i think in part it's because we are -- we have sort of descended to the bottom, you know, we're bottom feeding as a media. but i would argue, howie, that these things are having less impact today than they had six months ago or a year because they -- i think they have having trouble breaking through. the donald didn't break through with that i